"The government's red ink is our black ink, and their deficit is our surplus" -- what say you?

Suppose the government spends $100 into the economy, but it only taxes $90 back out. We label that a government deficit. So somewhere, somebody scratches down on a ledger: ”-$10 for the government.” You’re in deficit. . . We say, “Shame on you! That is very bad that you did that.” But we completely miss the fact that somewhere in the economy there’s 10 bucks out there that wouldn’t have been there if the government had balanced its budget. The government’s red ink is our black ink, and their deficit is our surplus. This is just by accounting definition. So every time someone talks about the need to “reign in the deficit,” or “balance the budget,” what they’re really saying is their goal is to shrink the private sector’s surplus. And I think if people understood it in those terms they’d be a whole lot less enthusiastic about running around and trying to shrink budget deficits, and so forth.

The above was said by Stephanie Kelton, economist at Stony Brook University. It was just one perspective on a podcast episode surveying different perspectives on the economy and the budget deficit. It caught my ear simply because it’s different from what I’ve heard before, and so I wanted to ask for your responses, reactions, analysis, and perspectives on it.

(Please try not to simply say “I agree” or “I disagree,” or “it’s good” or “it’s bad.” Instead try to explain why your perspective is what it is. That’s really what I’m curious about, not so much how you’d simply grade the above statement.)